Val McDermid

Val McDermid turns her considerable narrative skill to a non-fiction history of the development of forensics, from the days of Jack the Ripper to the 21st century. It's almost as gripping as one of her novels. Each chapter deals with one branch of forensics (Toxicology, DNA and Blood Spatter, Facial Reconstruction, etc.) and how it has come to be essential to crime scene investigators, prosecutors and defense attorneys. "The courtroom is the anvil on which scientific evidence is struck. With show more a well-prepared lawyer playing the part of the hammer, forensic techniques are either strengthened or broken, according to their merit." McDermid uses some classic cases, both unsolved and resolved, to illustrate what can be proven in a court of law (and equally what sometimes cannot be known for certain). The details of some of them were already familiar to me, but her perspective on the scientific evidence was still worth reading about. Comparisons of procedures in the US and the UK were often surprising, and who knew how much the insect world has to contribute to interpretation of a crime scene! show less

When anyone asks about my favorite mystery series, Val McDermid's Karen Pirie books are right up at the top of the list. With its lovely twisty plot, Past Lying is an excellent addition. The story is made even more engrossing by showing readers policing in the time of Covid. There are rules that must be obeyed, or there will be consequences, and Karen and her team have to be very careful (and quick-witted) about how they conduct themselves.

Speaking of Karen and her team, there is a lot in show more Past Lying to further the lives of the main characters. There's Karen's relationship with Hamish, the entrepreneur, which is complicated by the fact that he's miles away while Karen is in his apartment in Edinburgh with team member, Daisy, during the lockdown. And Daisy? She shows a lot of talent as a police officer, but I'm not sure how much I can trust her. After all, Daisy herself says, it's "... always handy to have something on your boss." This doubt makes the back of my mind itch as I watch Karen work hard to make both Daisy and Jason stronger members of the team.

There's even more going on in the characters' lives, which makes sense due to the personal nature of lockdown; however, there is also an insider's look at the craft of writing, manuscripts, publishing, author events, and workshops, as well as the plight of refugees. Past Lying is a densely layered, completely satisfying mystery, and I don't want to wait until December for the next book in the series. show less

Val McDermid must be one of our most prolific crime novelists, but although she regularly produces a new book every year, she never seems either to let the quality of her work waver, or to give the impression that her books are generated to a formula. She has also created some great recurring characters. I first became acquainted with her book through reading the exploits of Lindsey Gordon, a journalist with an unfortunate penchant for finding herself caught up in murders. After those books show more I moved on to her stories about Kate Brannigan, a resourceful private detective based in Manchester. McDermid may, however, be best known for the novels featuring DI Carol Jordan and Dr Tony Hill (I think that series must extend to nine or ten instalments by now) which also spawned the Wire in the Blood television series (named from the second novel in the sequence). In addition to her various standalone novels, she has a fourth series, recounting the cases investigated by Chief Inspector Karen Pirie, who leads the cold case team in Edinburgh. I think the novels in this series might almost be my favourites, although I have yet to read anything by her that I haven’t enjoyed.

In this latest book featuring Karen Pirie, she is faced with a desiccated corpse in a camper van that had been parked in the garage owned by a woman who had herself been killed in a car crash. The body had been discovered when the brother of the woman killed in the accident was going through her property, trying to sort out her estate.

Meanwhile, there is a current murder investigation in progress after fishermen pull a body from the sea. Identification is initially problematic, but the victim is eventually confirmed as the brother of a prominent civil servant from the Scotland Office whop had gone missing several years ago. At the time of his disappearance, the brother had been considered as prime suspect for having killed him, after witness accounts emerged of a fight between them on the last night that the civil servant had been seen.

McDermid weaves these two, seemingly unconnected, storylines together seamlessly, but never crosses into implausibility. Karen Pirie is a highly believable character: considerate, empathetic and ready to acknowledge her colleagues’ contribution to her investigation, she is also assertive and prepared to stand up to unreasonable and bullying bosses, and she knows how to navigate the slippery and treacherous slopes of internal politics within the police hierarchy.

I suspect that Val McDermid’s secret goes back to her former career as a crime reporter, relying upon clear writing and a strong grasp of the storyline. show less

A perfectly preserved body is found in a bog in Scotland by a very surprised couple who were chasing “buried treasure” via a handmade map from the 1940s. DCI Karen Pririe of the Historic Crimes Unit arrives on the scene but, as it will turn out, the body is not ancient at all, nor does it correspond with the 1940s.

One may recall that I declared the previous Karen Pririe novel, “the nearest thing to a perfect police procedural as can be” and this installment falls not far from that show more same tree. And as with the previous novel, this one is complex, interesting, and is unraveled in the same delicious manner. Karen, who tends to wander from protocol, has a new, overbearing boss, who has been secretly nicknamed “Dog Biscuit”, and it’s possible a newly transferred officer is put on Karen’s team to keep an eye on her. The story moves back and forth from the 1940s to the present, until all the threads are first unraveled, and then woven together into something quite satisfying. While not quite as perfect as the previous novel, [Out of Bounds], [Broken Ground] still gets top marks. And who doesn’t like a good bog body story?! It can be read as a standalone, but I would recommend reading the previous book first, if possible. show less